Dr. Bob was a MD internal medicine, orthomolecular doctor, MD psychiatrist, chiropractor, and healer 65 years.  He was a diabetic who lived to 108 years with only 1 side effect 2 years before he passed away. 

The following are the ideas and opinions of Dr. Bob.  Be sure to discuss any changes in your treatment with your personal physician if you plan on implementing any of Dr. Bob’s methods. 

Dr. Bob asked me long ago if I would like to learn the methods of orthomolecular medicine (orthomolecular medicine – a system of medicine using mainly natural substances, non-toxic, and safe in a wide range of dose).  I answered yes to this question.  He said "then you need to learn all about 80% bowel-tolerance."  It was the first method of orthomolecular medicine he described to me, an indication of its value and importance in healing.    

80% bowel-tolerance is a method Dr. Bob used to save many people whose conditions had deteriorated to the final stages.  He said "even patients with only several weeks to live sometimes survived by using the method of 80% bowel-tolerance."    

Dr. Bob recommended I study the ideas of Dr. Robert Fulton Cathcart III, of Los Altos, California.  Robert Cathcart has done incredible studies on bowel-tolerance.  His articles are on the Internet medical library called Pub Med (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) under R.F. Cathcart and the article, "A Unique Function for Ascorbate."    

The 80% bowel-tolerance method, use an intake of vitamin C just below the amount that causes a loose, watery bowel movement.  For example, at first increase your intake of vitamin C to sufficiently large amounts until it has a laxative effect.  Then drop down your intake of vitamin C to 80% bowel tolerance – the amount of vitamin C that is just below the dose that will produce watery bowel movements.  Robert Cathcart basically says the bowel-tolerance intake is between 4 and 15 grams per 24-hours for people in "ordinary good health," and to have much larger values for the same persons, up to more than 200 grams per 24-hours for severely ill patients.  He has treated thousands of patients with this method.  He found that vitamin C is most effective as an adjunct to appropriate conventional therapy, when needed, if it is ingested at the bowel-tolerance intake.  He has observed that this intake is different for different people and different for the same person at different times.  Cathcart observed that the bowel-tolerance intake is usually very large for seriously ill patients and becomes smaller as the patient's health improves.  He was astonished that for some severely ill patients the bowel-tolerance limit was more than 200 grams per day.  As a disease was controlled, the limit would fall toward the normal values, 4 to 15 grams a day.    

THE MAIN POINT, ACCORDING TO DR. CATHCART, IS VITAMIN C HAS LITTLE EFFECT ON ACUTE SYMPTOMS UNTIL DOSES OF 80 TO 90 PERCENT OF BOWEL-TOLERANCE ARE REACHED.  He also has stated that suppression of some symptoms, in some instances may not be total, but usually is very significant and often the problem is completely and rapid in healing.  Dr. Cathcart’s methods address a standard for administrating vitamin C to his patients in a manner responsive to their biochemical individuality.    

Dr. Cathcart explains the method of how vitamin C at bowel-tolerance doses is able to improve or heal many conditions.   Essentially vitamin C is an electron donor in the disease fighting process.  Vitamin C carries two electrons that it gives up in this disease fighting process.  Vitamin C has the ability to be used repeatedly by its ability to go from a reduced state (it gives up its electrons) to a re-reduced state (it gets back its electrons). Conventional wisdom, Dr. Cathcart explains it is correct that only small amounts of vitamin C are necessary for this function of electron donor because of the recycled use of vitamin C as an electron donor.  He says the point missed is free radical scavengers, necessary to quench free radicals and highly oxidizing substances, are limited by the rate at which extra high-energy electrons are provided.  In other words free radical scavengers fight the disease process.  The major culprits in the disease process are free radicals and oxidization.  When ill, free radicals are formed at a rate faster than the high-electrons are made available.  So doses such as 1-10 grams per 24 hour do only limited good.  When massive amounts of vitamin C are used such as 30-200 grams these amounts provide the electrons necessary to quench the free radicals of almost any inflammation.  Additionally, these large amounts also provide the high-energy electrons necessary to quench the oxidization processes.  Dr. Cathcart also says that even at these enormous doses vitamin C is virtually non-toxic.     

The description given of 80 percent bowel-tolerance has been simplified for this discussion.  The key point is that the disease process has a rate of destruction.  The usual methods the body uses to heal sometimes cannot keep up with the destruction rate.  One of the key limiting factors in keeping up with the destruction rate is the need for free radical scavengers to obtain electrons to do their job of neutralizing the harm from free radicals and oxidization, which can cause many of the problems of the disease state.  Since free radicals and oxidization cause a great deal of the damage from disease, then if you neutralize them a great deal of the harm from the disease is neutralized.  Vitamin C in large quantities provides the extra electrons necessary for the free radical scavengers to keep up with the destruction rate.       

The following is a story to give you an idea about the value of the rate of healing versus the rate of destruction.  Imagine a small village.  Its water supply is from wells.  The method to obtain the water is by jars and buckets.  The town has exactly one hundred people.  A fire breaks out. Everyone rushes to the fire with buckets or jars.  The people form lines of four to the well.  The buckets are handed up and back by groups of four people.  There are ten jars and buckets.  Therefore there are ten lines to the well with four people per line, totaling forty people helping to put out the fire and sixty people with no jars and buckets, just watching the fire.  Suddenly the Fire Marshall shows up with fifteen more buckets or jars.  Now twenty-five lines of four people totaling a hundred people are formed around the wells.  The fire is now put out much faster with the use of the additional fifteen buckets.    

The point is the buckets and jars represent the role of vitamin C in providing electrons in the disease fighting process.  The village had one hundred able bodied people to help put out the fire.  However the whole village could not help until the additional buckets and jars arrived.  So the body may have many resources to put out the disease, but like the village, not enough buckets.  The vitamin C in large quantities provides the buckets and jars to the body in the disease fighting process.    

The reason to consider bowel-tolerance, as a method to determine appropriate vitamin C dose for states of disease and illness.  There are essentially different pathways in the body for different processes.  When vitamin C is needed for its electrons this happens through a specific pathway in the body.  When enough vitamin C has been provided for the electron needs of the free radical scavengers and other metabolic pathways of vitamin C  (metabolism - processing and handling of vitamin C and other nutrients in cell), it is metabolized and sent out of the body in bowel movements.  In other words loose bowel movements indicate that extra vitamin C is not being used anymore for its electrons and other functions.    

Dr. Bob and others have used the method of 80% bowel tollerance to improve or heal many conditions.  Dr. Bob said this method worked for him 20% of the time in all terminal cases where the person had as little as a few weeks to live.  These kinds of results have also been documented elsewhere.  One good source of this information is the authors Linus Pauling and R.F. Cathcart.    

Dr. Bob called 80% bowel-tolerance an overlooked cure for terminal illness.  Even when the person did not survive the disease, 80% bowel tolerance alleviated many of the symptoms or improved the person's health to make the quality of life much better in their last days.      

The method Dr. Bob used was to start at 2 grams of vitamin C every two hours.  The dose the first 24-hours was 24 grams.  He added 1 gram per dose the next 24-hours making 36 grams per 24 hours.  He added 1 gram per every 2-hours the next 24-hour period so the dose was now 48 grams.  He continued to increase the dose until bowel-tolerance.  When he reached bowel-tolerance he would drop the dose a little below the dose of bowel tolerance.  He would keep adjusting the dose according to bowel-tolerance, either going up or reducing the dose depending on whether the bowel movements were watery or normal.  In cases of extreme emergency or trauma, Dr Bob would start at 4 grams per hour totaling 48 grams in a 24-hour period.  He would not change this dose even with bowel-tolerance until you could see the condition improving.  If 48 grams of vitamin C in a 24-hour period did not cause bowel-tolerance he would go up in dose very fast until you did reach bowel-tolerance.  Dr. Bob added a few supplements in his 80% bowel-tolerance method using vitamin C.  

Dr. Bob’s method of 80% bowel tolerance: 

1.      Consider vitamin C to 80% bowel tolerance.  Use method described in this article to achieve a vitamin C dose that is just below bowel tolerance.  The stool should appear normal, not watery if the dose is proper.  The dose will likely need to be adjusted daily to consistently achieve 80% bowel tolerance.

2.      Consider 200 to 300 mg of alpha lipoic acid 3-4 times a day.  It should be taken in the AM, midday, PM, and the middle of the night.  The alpha lipoic acid is a free radical scavenger.  In this method, its main function is to fight the disease process and it has the ability to make vitamin C work better and longer!

3.      Dr Bob also had the patient take 800 IU total of dry vitamin E each day, in divided doses.  Dr. Bob cautioned people not to take vitamin E if you were using any blood thinners. 

4.      Additionally Dr. Bob had the person supplement 60 mg of CoQ10 for women and 100 mg for men.  CoQ10 can improve blood volume and circulation, can help increase cellular energy, and many other benefits that can enhance the method of 80% bowel tolerance.  There are different types and qualities used for CoQ10.  Therefore it is difficult to advise an appropriate dose.  Consider checking with a nutritional expert or orthomolecular doctor for your appropriate CoQ10 dose

5.      Also, vitamin C can result in reduced levels of calcium in the body.  Thus depending on your dose of vitamin C, Dr. Bob would add 1-3 grams of calcium each day, in divided doses.  He advised, the main amount of calcium should be supplemented in the evening.  He recommended not to drink milk or eat chocolate near the time of calcium supplementation. 

This is his basic treatment using 80% bowel-tolerance.  He would often use other orthomolecular substances, vitamins/minerals or herbs, or other non-toxic, safe, natural substances.  This would depend on each particular case.    

On about December 4th, 1998 I was asked to help the uncle of someone who had already been helped by the web-site.  The uncle was a diabetic and had gangrene.  The doctors had already scheduled an amputation for him on about December 28, 1998.  I told him about Dr. Bob's 80% bowel-tolerance method.  Also Dr. Bob had a topical vitamin C cream he used for gangrene.  The many uses of vitamin C are in the vitamin C section of this web site.  In early January I heard from the person who had first called.  He started shouting in joy that the gangrene was gone and the operation was not needed!  The doctors had been astounded down in San Diego. I told the caller to tell the uncle to consider using the topical vitamin C anyway for a couple of weeks.  I explained that sometimes a disease condition when it disappears is only suppressed.  You need to keep using the healing method for one or two weeks past the healing time to make sure the condition does not come back. 

Warning - consider laboratory analysis of your calcium levels before you begin 80% bowel tolerance.  Your calcium dose will need to be adjusted according to your calcium levels, amount of vitamin C used each day for 80% bowel tolerance, and the age and condition of the patient.  Consider using an orthomolecular doctor for the method of 80% bowel tolerance.  Natural substances, like vitamin C, are their specialty.  

Note – In order for these nutritional ideas to be successful, you must use supplements of the highest quality. Dr. Bob often said, “almost all supplement companies produce poor quality.”  You can consider the product page of this web site. All the products met Dr. Bob’s approval.  Since he passed away we have attempted to keep the same high standards on new products. 

 WARNING: DO NOT STOP ANY TREATMENT OR MEDICATION YOU CURRENTLY USE.  CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE STARTING THE USE OF SUPPLEMENTS.  

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The Food and Drug Administration has not evaluate any of the statements contained on this web site.  The information contained in this article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.  Remember each person’s body is different and will react differently to various herbal, vitamin and mineral supplements.  Therefore, any supplementation must be administered on an individual basis.  Use the information found on this web site as precisely that: Information.  You and your doctor must make any final decisions.  This information is not meant to replace any doctor and patient consultation.  This information should in no way replace your personal physician’s advice.

Page Last Modified: 19JAN02